Excuse me, please Include Your Facebook in Your Resume

It was a while back my sister-in-law mentioned how employers are now looking up employees Facebook profiles. Not only to check out what’s going on with their employees, but the interviewees for a job position too. Hence, employers may soon ask, “Excuse me, do you have a Facebook profile?” Or, they’ll ask if they may be added to your Friends.

There are a couple of things on my mind about this issue. Not just concerning privacy, but the sheer relevance of using Facebook to judge an employees personality and behaviour.

Let’s say the employer sounded friendly and never hinted a feeling of threat to you so you add him into your Facebook. Besides your friends, status updates, applications and photos, I don’t see how he/she can use Facebook to assess an employee.

Besides, if he/she added you then it would mean you’d have access to his/her contacts of friends too.

This brings me to a feature I’ve yet discovered on Facebook. The ability to privatise selected areas of my profile – especially friends. I’d say the most threatening part of Facebook in a job application are the who.

Resumes contain your best job references. However, what if the employer has a friend whom you’ve worked with/for before. Imagine how that could turn out. Ugh!

So yeah, is the request of Facebook profiles a soon-to-be trend in job applications?